Russian Rap Inspires a Movement

A vibrant underground criticizes the power of the Kremlin-backed elite

By

Alexander Osipovich

Updated July 24, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Moscow

Resistance movements often have a soundtrack. In the Soviet Union during the last decades of communist rule, dissidents listened to the Beatles and admired guitar-strumming bards like Vladimir Vysotsky, whose bitter lyrics contrasted sharply with the cheeriness of official propaganda. Nowadays, dissenters in Vladimir Putin's Russia have found a new source of musical inspiration: a homegrown version of Tupac Shakur and Public Enemy.

ENLARGE

NoizeMC, aka Ivan Alexeyev, went after Russia's second-largest oil company with a rap song earlier this year.
NoizeMC

To the surprise of many, Russian rap has emerged as an outlet for social protest, with rappers producing songs on such hot-button issues as drugs, police brutality and the immense power of the Kremlin-backed elite. Although most mainstream, TV-friendly rappers stick to familiar topics like bling and babes, the Internet has fueled the growth of a vibrant rap underground with socially conscious songs too provocative for the state-dominated media.

"Rap is in the process of rising to its feet. It's a genre that I hope will change Russian music," said Ivan Alexeyev, a rapper who goes by the name Noize MC and who many consider a rising star in Russian rap.

Mr. Alexeyev, 25, drew widespread attention this year with a song that attacked Russia's second-largest oil company, Lukoil, over a deadly car crash involving one of its executives. In the Feb. 25 crash, which quickly became a much-discussed topic on Russian blogs and opposition media outlets, a Mercedes belonging to Lukoil vice president Anatoly Barkov collided head-on with a Citroën on a busy thoroughfare in southern Moscow. The two women in the Citroën—Olga Alexandrina, 35, and Vera Sidelnikova, 72—both died, while Mr. Barkov and his driver escaped with light injuries. Witnesses said the Mercedes had been illegally speeding down a reserved central lane when it hit the Citroën. But police ruled the accident to be Ms. Alexandrina's fault.

Outrage spread through the blogosphere amid perceptions that police were covering up for a powerful executive, and angry car owners staged protests against the arrogant driving behavior of VIPs, a frequent target of complaints among Russian drivers.

For Mr. Alexeyev, who shared a mutual friend with the two dead women, it was personal. "I felt rage and a sense of injustice," he said. In less than a day, the rapper wrote and recorded "Mercedes S666," a song that depicts Mr. Barkov as a disdainful elitist who pays bribes and uses his connections to cover up criminal behavior. To a menacing beat, Mr. Alexeyev takes on the persona of the oil executive and raps: "Get out of my way, plebeians, don't get under my wheels / Tremble, pitiful rabble, there's a patrician on the highway / We're late for hell, make way for the chariot."

Videos

See music videos by two Russian rappers. (The videos may show explicit language or content.)

The song became a viral Internet sensation after one of Mr. Alexeyev's friends created a music video for it, pasting Mr. Barkov's face onto Satan's body in a crude animation that mixes images from "South Park" with footage of the crash scene. To date, the YouTube video has had more than 700,000 hits, and it has helped fuel an outcry that ultimately led President Dmitry Medvedev to order a new investigation. Afisha, a popular entertainment magazine, praised Mr. Alexeyev's song as "the most effective musical act of civil resistance in Russia for the past 10 years."

Lukoil says the accident was Mr. Barkov's personal affair and has denied partaking in any cover-up, while Mr. Barkov himself has urged an "objective" probe into the crash. But Mr. Alexeyev, who says he never expected his song to get so much attention, is still angry. In a recent Noize MC video, he mocks a fictional company called "F---oil" whose logo is remarkably similar to that of the real-life Russian oil giant.

Other rappers have also drawn on current events for material. Timur Kuzminykh, who goes by the name Dino MC 47, heaped scorn on Russia's leaders in a song about the March 29 suicide bombings that killed 40 people in the Moscow metro. Attacking officials with "insolent fat faces" who, he alleges, are more concerned with enriching themselves than fighting terrorism, he raps: "Their kids are in London and their money is in the Caymans / But what are we supposed to do, where can we run?"

Critics say Russian rap has surpassed other musical genres in the country in its honesty and willingness to tackle touchy issues. "In terms of the content of their songs, our rappers are much more socially active and articulate than our rockers, to say nothing of our pop stars," Artemy Troitsky, a prominent music critic and the author of several books about Russian rock, said in a telephone interview.

Provocative rap acts rarely break though into the mainstream media, where criticism of the Kremlin practically vanished after Mr. Putin became president in 2000. (He stepped down to become prime minister in 2008 but is still widely regarded as Russia's paramount leader.) Music-video channels and commercial radio stations are too timid to broadcast politically sensitive rap, which leaves the Internet—but that's not necessarily a bad thing, says Mr. Troitsky. "The Internet is now a much more powerful media resource in the music scene than television or radio," the critic said. "We are seeing more and more how certain performers are popular purely thanks to the Internet, without any LPs or any support from the mass media."

Mr. Alexeyev, who regularly packs clubs throughout Russia with hundreds of teenage fans, is one such performer. But he doubts that protest rap will become a widespread phenomenon. "It will probably become like American [rap], where you have some underground labels producing one thing, while TV channels choose songs for their entertainment value," he said.

Mr. Kuzminykh, who wrote the song about the metro bombings, sees more potential in the movement. "[Rap] in Russia today is like rock music was in the 1980s in the Soviet Union," he said. "It's the spirit of protest and freedom and change."

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